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Lab Safety Practices Fall Short of Perceived Safety, Finds International Survey Conducted by BioRAFT and Partners

Survey Conducted by BioRAFT, Nature Publishing Group, and the University of California Center for Laboratory Safety Finds That Researchers Generally Believe They Are Safer Than Their Safety Practices Indicate

The survey explored a wide variety of topics surrounding lab safety, including researchers' general perceptions of lab safety measures and practices, whether they felt that they had the right knowledge and tools to be safe in their laboratories, and their ability to gauge the gap between researchers' and supervisors' views on lab safety. More than 2,360 scientists and researchers completed the survey during a six-week period in the summer of 2012. Among other findings:

The vast majority of respondents -- 95% -- report that lab safety is very or quite important to them personally, and 86% report that they feel their lab is a safe place to work. Yet, 64% state that people work alone in their lab multiple times per week and 54% report that they don't wear a lab coat at all times.

While 91% of respondents report that they are aware of and understand the minimum training requirements for their lab duties, 40% state that they did not receive safety training on specific agents or hazards.

While 94% of senior researchers felt that appropriate safety measures were in place in their labs, only 69% of junior researchers agreed.

In addition, 30% of respondents reported that they have at some point in their career been aware of at least one major injury requiring medical attention within their lab.

"Scientists think they're safe, but their compliance with currently accepted best practices, along with the frequency of injuries, indicate that they're not. This points to serious problems in how communication around lab safety and its requirements are being conducted," says Nathan Watson, CEO of BioRAFT. "These survey results are just the beginning of a larger conversation that the scientific community needs to have to improve lab safety."

"The results of this survey really provide a roadmap for us, determining where we need to focus our efforts to improve lab safety," says James Gibson, Executive Director of the UC Center for Laboratory Safety and Director of UCLA's Office of Environment, Health & Safety. "In the coming months we'll be closely analyzing all of these data, continuing our mission of helping academic and commercial labs all across the world make their labs even safer."

The survey is the first of a series of studies and projects to provide a path for establishing data-driven best practices for laboratory safety. BioRAFT will be publishing a series of posts examining different aspects and implications of the survey. To request a copy of the lab safety survey and to view the first post on the survey, please visit http://www.bioraft.com/blog.

About BioRAFT

The BioRAFT suite of research management software modules significantly improves laboratory safety, compliance processes, researcher productivity, and management oversight. BioRAFT enables researchers to focus on their research by managing compliance for training, biosafety, hazardous chemicals, radiation management, MSDS, and other laboratory safety requirements. BioRAFT has secured an investment from Digital Science, a new technology company out of Macmillan Publishers Ltd. For more information, visit http://www.BioRAFT.com

About the UC Center for Laboratory Safety

The UC Center for Laboratory Safety was created to improve safety through scientific research and implementation of best safety practices in laboratories at universities and research organizations. The Center operates under the oversight of the UC Center for Laboratory Safety Advisory Board with technical support from the UCLA Office of Environment, Health and Safety. For more information, visit http://cls.ucla.edu.